TY - GEN A1 - Rich, Beatrice Monique A1 - Hülse, Max A1 - Woll, Ralf T1 - The first impression counts: View area investigations on vehicles T2 - Proc. 22nd Quality Manage. and Organisational Develop. Int. Conf. on Quality and Service Sciences N2 - Purpose: Based on a request from a automobile manufacturer, a feasibility study was carried out to compare the quality standards of different target groups with regard to defect perception. The following question developed as a result of the study: Do customers subdivide products (especially vehicles) into visual areas which they assign different relevance to the perception and the significance of defects? Automobile manufacturers classify their vehicles into viewing areas in order to assess the significance of defects during the product audit better. The study has shown that customers attach a different significance to the areas of view than it is specified in the company standard. A customer can perceive a seemingly insignificant defect in viewing area C (below the vehicle) as extremely significant. In order to investigate this in more detail, a visual field inspection on vehicles was conducted. Methodology/Approach: The study was carried out on 2 consecutive days. The test persons were asked to put themselves into the "real" situation that they pick up their purchased new car and see it for the first time. The test persons were shown imperfections on varnish samples. They were asked to imagine that the shown imperfections were on the respective vehicles and to evaluate them on the prepared questionnaires. Each test person filled out one questionnaire for each imperfection. The evaluation took place on a scale with the following breakdown: I would not notice (green)/ I would notice, but would not annoy me (yellow)/ I would notice and it would annoy me (orange)/ I would notice and I would complain about (pink). Findings: Before the study was carried out, various hypotheses were formulated, which were either accepted or rejected based on the study results. For example, the position of the imperfection with respect to the driver's or passenger's side is not relevant for the evaluation of an imperfection. However, the gender of the test person has an influence on the evaluation. Female test persons are somewhat more critical than males. The color of the car can also have an influence on the evaluation of imperfections. Research Limitation: The significance of the results may be limited by the selection of test persons. Most of them are still students. Furthermore, the test vehicles are of a certain brand and a certain type, so that a transferability of the results to other vehicle types could be critically discussed. The developed study design works and should be repeated with a larger number of participants and possibly different vehicle types. Value of paper: Automobile manufacturers put enormous effort into the quality control of their vehicles. In terms of cost-benefit considerations, automobile manufacturers have to ask themselves: Do we use the right standards, criteria and methods for the quality control of our vehicles? Since customer orientation is becoming increasingly focused (f. ex. based on ISO 9001:2015 and the general competitive pressure), studies such as this one help to better understand customers and integrate their point of view into everyday production. Y1 - 2019 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-UBICO/frontdoor/index/index/docId/24849 UR - https://www.ism.lu.se/en/sites/ism.lu.se.en/files/qmod_2019_final_program_2019_0930.pdf ER -